Over the past few months, the Index on Censorship Youth Advisory Board has been coming together to ask difficult, yet essential questions; attempting to spark and promote thought provoking debates and engage the general public in societal issues and conflicts that affect us all.

The topics we have explored in #IndexDrawTheLine can be found below. You can follow the links to see the youth board’s full coverage.

• Our opening question looked at the ways in which we can balance religious freedom and religious extremism and how it is one of the major challenges facing society.

• Following the Charlie Hebdo killings in January, we looked at the freedom to offend, and how the protection of offence is vital for free expression.

• The sharing of graphic content on social media was the basis of our next question, which asked how much is too much? We explored the freedom to share it and also the freedom to not have graphic content forced upon us.

• Returning to the issue of extremism for our penultimate discussion, we looked at whether or not it has a place on campus, arguing that: “Universities should be places where young people have the freedom to learn, debate and use their knowledge to challenge guest speakers.”

• For our final #IndexDrawtheLine topic, we looked at where governments should draw the line on every day surveillance, and finding the balance between the protection of people and the infringement on their privacy.

But the conversation doesn’t stop there. We have to keep encouraging open debate and a level of transparency in a world full of censorship. It is imperative as new threats to free speech arise each day, and old threats recur. It is the responsibility of all of us to provide a voice for the voiceless, represented and unrepresented alike.

To join in future discussions, follow the #IndexDrawtheLine hashtag on Twitter.

This article was posted on 8 June 2015 at indexoncensorship.org